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Was The Blair Witch Project Based On A True Story? Real-Life Inspiration Explored As Film Turns 25
The horror movie The Blair Witch Project completes 25 years, but fans are still wondering if it was based on a true story or not. Read more to find out!
Over two decades ago, The Blair Witch Project changed the landscape of the horror movie genre. The Eduardo Sánchez and Daniel Myrick directorial went on to become one of the most surprising box office successes. Through the years, the authenticity of the story has been questioned. There is a real story behind the horror noir movie, and we can break down the real-life inspiration for this classic right here.
The supernatural horror movie, told in a docu-fiction style, tells the story through the lens of three students. Made on a restricted budget of $60,000, it grossed over $250 million and became the 29th most profitable horror film. It is also one of the biggest independent films to achieve that box office number.
What Is The Blair Witch Project About?
Scripted, directed, and edited by Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez, The Blair Witch Project is an American supernatural psychological horror film.
ALSO READ: ‘25 Years of Disrespect': Blair Witch Project Star Joshua Leonard Slams Announcement Of New Reboot
It is a fictional story about three student filmmakers—Heather Donahue, Michael Williams, and Joshua Leonard—who trekked in the Black Hills near Burkittsville, Maryland, in 1994 to put together a documentary on the Blair Witch, a local legend.
However, the research takes a scary turn when the kids become disoriented in the woods and begin to hear terrifying noises. The three eventually vanished, but their equipment and footage were found a year later, which explains what really happened to them.
Real-life inspiration behind The Blair Witch Project
Even though the movie is in documentary style, there are fictional bits and characters. Even after being one of the most acclaimed supernatural horror movies, there is still a level of doubt that remains: How much of the movie was based on reality?
To answer that question, it is based on a real-life legend, but the project's creators, Myrick and Sanchez, improvised a lot. They even created a website and flared up the myth's reality way ahead of the film's release to add to the excitement of watching the film.
The other way in which the movie was unconventional was in the shooting process. So, directors David and Eduardo did not write dialogue in the movie and relied heavily on the actors to do method acting.
Finding the actors was a curious task; they held open auditions across New York City in 1996, where they asked the actors to respond to hypothetical situations and then read out the script. That is how they eventually found their protagonist.
Method filmmaking and controversies
David Myrcik and Eduardo Sanchez created an elaborate plot about the disappearance of three student filmmakers in the Black Hills near Burkittsville, Md. They created a website in 1998 with fake police reports, interviews, and news articles.
According to WIRED, these bogus tales featured an extensive background involving Donahue's mother fighting with local authorities over the footage and urging filmmakers to piece it all together, blurring the line between reality and fiction even more.
But, as you can imagine, an independent film relies heavily on its restricted resources. The directors have also said that, apart from getting their actors involved in method acting and putting them in unpredictable circumstances, the makers also directed The Blair Witch Project in a very raw style, and called it method filmmaking.
The actors spent eight days in the woods, enduring hunger, sleep deprivation, and continual stress, all of which were designed to push them to their limits and elicit genuine reactions. They had no idea what would happen during the filming process.
Sequel to The Blair Witch Project and impact
Back in 2018, when Blumehouse announced that they would be making a sequel to the movie, all three actors involved wrote an open letter asking for retroactive residuals and urging the makers to engage in meaningful dialogue.
The reason behind this is very simple: because Leonard, Donahue, and Williams’s real identities were used in the years following the release and success of the movie, all three face a different reality.
So, while The Blair Witch Project might be based on an urban legend, most of the movie was fictionalized and filmed in a way that makes it feel real.
ALSO READ: ‘25 Years of Disrespect': Blair Witch Project Star Joshua Leonard Slams Announcement Of New Reboot
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